Heartbeat’s Lunchbox

On Monday morning, on my way to send Heartbeat to school, he told me he was hungry. We already passed the shops and I couldn’t afford to turn back as it would mess my tight daily schedule. I realized he refused to eat the previous night and he might be starving now. His morning snack would be at 10 am. It was only 7.20 and I couldn’t imagine him staying hungry through his lesson. I didn’t even have a bread or something.

I rummaged through my bag and find a pack of chocolates and put it inside his bag.“If you are hungry, you eat this chocolate first, OK?”

When I dropped him off and the teacher asked him how was he, I quickly told her, he was hungry. The teacher told me she would give him some biscuits first, to which I smiled apologetically and said sorry.

When I picked him up after school, I asked him if he ate anything in the morning, and he said the teacher gave him bread with jam. It ended good, but yes I was embarrassed.

So on Tuesday, I packed up breakfast for him. I made tiny bite-sized sandwich fingers with options of jam, peanut butter and milo and cut apple on its side. Heartbeat ate only the jam ones, and finished the apple. Well, he told me earlier he didn’t want the peanut butter, but dude, you were the one who asked me to buy the chocolate peanut butter, remember?

On Wednesday, he asked for roti telur sosej which is just sausage rolled in bread, coated with eggs and pan-grilled, french toast style. I put three tiny bite-sized on a bed of sliced omelette with cut apple on its side.

When he came home, I asked him what did he eat at school.“I ate my yellow box.”“That is for morning. What about lunch? What did you eat for lunch?”“I ate my yellow box.”

You are not serious! I packed so little you couldn’t be eating only those for breakfast AND lunch. Aren’t you even hungry? You got swimming class some more!

My husband couldn’t believe it either. So he interrogated Heartbeat himself. It turned out the teacher did gave him the school food but he didn’t like it so he ate from his box whatever left.

“But how can you not finish the food the teacher gave you? Then the teacher would be angry,” my husband was appalled.“No, the teacher was not angry.” Heartbeat replied, nonchalantly.

I guess the school is really a school. We cannot be expecting the teachers to take care of whether the kids eat or not. That would already be beyond their job.

So last night I bought a few lunchboxes, so I can pack him more food. And shopped for fruits because Heartbeat likes fruits in his box.

This is today boxes. Rice balls with chicken balls (Heartbeat thinks they are fish balls) with cucumber, cut watermelons and apple. Because when he came back from school yesterday he said, “I want timun and fishballs.”

I find myself enjoying the lunchbox-making although my morning now became doubly busy. But it doesn’t beat the feeling of looking at pretty lunchboxes. On Instagram, I follow @kongkong2_kim. She makes really pretty lunchbox and sells useful cooking tools on her page. But they are not shipped worldwide so for now we can only watch her use them on video ha ha ha.

I hope to buy more useful things to use to make lunchboxes, recommends me a nice shop that you know!